1838.] Titles on the Bactrian Coins. 643 



as in AZIAI20Y, while A occurs for Z in the same word. In form it 

 seems to be the Chaldaic n > or th soft. The inflections of these letters 

 yet observed are, £ siy'pse, P su ; ft shi, Q s/jw ; and their combinations 

 with consonants are numerous, — ^ sta, "g sM ; ^ sma ? ; Tj sto, g sm ? 



It will be naturally expected that the alterations I have been compelled 

 to adopt in the value of many of the above letters must produce consi- 

 derable modifications in my former interpretation of the Bactrian legends. 

 Indeed when I look back at my attempt of 1835, I must confess that 

 it was very unsatisfactory even to myself. I was misled by the Nak- 

 shi-rustam trilingual inscription, wherein the title of king of kings has 

 been uniformly read as mala/can malakd, though I balanced between 

 this and the term mahardo, having found pao on the Indo-Scythic 

 series. But, once perceiving that the final letter might be rendered as 

 sa, which is the regular Pali termination of the genitive case, I threw 

 off the fetters of an interpretation through the Semitic languages, and 

 at once found an easy solution of all the names and the epithets through 

 the pliant, the wonder-working Pali, which seems really to have held an 

 universal sway during the prevalence of the Buddhist faith in India. 



The best test of the superiority of a Pali interpretation will be found in 

 its application to the several royal titles of the Greek kings, which were 

 previously quite unintelligible. The first of these is simply BASlAEflS 

 which is constantly rendered by "PiL^lu mahardjasa, the Pali form 

 of trorCTVRg- It is true that there is some doubt whether the long 

 vowel a, is here applied to the h and r ; but we have long since been 

 accustomed to the omission of this and even other vowels in the Satrap 

 coins of Surdshtra. The word is often written TH^.Iu, whence I 

 have supposed the dot or dash below to stand for a. 



The next title is BASIAEH2 BA2IAEHN, which we find replaced by 

 T^iT") TiCllu mahdrajasa rdjar&jasa, a perfectly sound and pro- 

 per expression according to the idiom of the Sanskrit. But in one class 

 of coins, that of Azes, there are some very well preserved specimens 

 in which the second part of the title is , Pit K T*lJi v l which is evidently 

 rdjdtirdjasa (or adhi for the letter has a turn at foot and may be meant 

 for \ dhi), the regular ?:i3TTf^TT3T^ of the paramount sovereigns of 

 India. The syllable dhi is often written *\ ti, Hn ri or even f ti or gi (?) 

 but the vowel i shews what is meant. 



To the title of king of kings is generally added on the Greek side 

 the epithet MErAAOr, for which we have an addition in Bactrian of the 

 word TTlu mahatasa, one of the forms of the Pali genitive of mahdn 

 (or mahatj great, which makes only mahatah *?^<T : in Sanskrit. The 

 full title then is thus found to be mahdrajasa rdjadhirdjasa mahatasa, 



